Contents

Summary

Official Solicitation

In this second installment of "Mobius: 30 Years Later," the stakes are raised to pulse-pounding proportions! King Sonic has received dire news from Silver: something that will doom the future is right around the bend! Things go from bad to worse when Lien-Da and her Dark Presence invades the castle! Who will escape, and who will be the first to fall? All this, plus another surprise returning character revealed!

Story One

"Dark Siege"

Silver the Hedgehog is in the royal family's living room, looking at a picture of Lara-Su and Sonic's children. King Sonic and Queen Sally have just tucked the children in bed, and they talk to Silver about the happenings within the past five years, as well as the current timeline, consisting of Lien-Da and the Dark Presence. Silver is completely out-of-date with the current timeline and gets most of the conversation mixed up. Sonic acts levelheaded about the conversation, and stops Sally and Silver from getting into an argument.

While the trio continue their conversation, Lara-Su confronts Rutan about his mother's whereabouts, at his house. He denies seeing her, blaming Lara-Su and her relatives for her departure. Dimitri then appears between the two, preventing Lara-Su and Rutan from getting into a fight. Dimitri tries to comfort Lara-Su about Lien-Da, and how she stopped King Shadow, during his reign of terror.

Meanwhile, Tails opens his door of his hotel room, thinking it's room service, only to be gassed by the Dark Presence. Mina Mongoose notices, and quickly runs out of the door, with her children in her arms. She puts Melody and Skye by a curb, and orders them to find an E.S.T. officer or the Guardian, while she goes to help her husband. Mina boldly confronts the Dark Presence, but is quickly gassed by one of the team members.

While Lara-Su heads back to Castle Mobius, she thinks to herself about Dimitri's words and how she only went to Rutan to blow off some steam and that her actions almost got King Sonic killed. She then spots the Dark Presence heading toward Castle Mobius and immediately goes on the attack, but quickly recovers as realization hits her that this is not the way things should be done and instead uses the ninja skills taught her by her Uncle Espio.

Back at Castle Mobius, Misty-Re (a Dark Presence sleeper agent posing as a maid) offers the royal family refreshments and flirts with Silver, asking if he was the brave one who saved their king. Silver admits he saved Sonic to which she pulls out a gun from under the napkin and gasses him. Sonic then gasses her, and tells Sally to take herself and the kids to the panic room. After an argument over what to do, Sally and Sonic quickly give each other a goodbye-kiss, and Sonic runs off.

He discovers Lara-Su in his castle, battling some Dark Presence members. Unfortunately, the security system has suddenly turned against them, but Sonic and Lara-Su jump out of a castle window before being tagged by the lasers. They find Skye and Melody on the street, and try their best to calm them down. Sonic promises to help out the children the best he can, but doesn't know where to hide. Lara-Su tells Sonic that Argyle (Vector's son) has a safe place to hide, and so the four of them head to Argyle's.

Back at Castle Mobius, Lien-Da gets report on the Dark Presence's work. They have secured Tails and Mina in their room, they have confined the castle staff to their rooms and they have hacked the security service. Afterwards, Lien-Da heads to the pod, where King Shadow is kept holding. She brings along the Chaos Syphon to bring back Shadow's power. They then charge the pod up, releasing Shadow from his stasis and back to power.

Quotes

"Misty-Re": Aren't you that brave and mysterious stranger? The one who saved our king with his amazing powers?

Silver: Aw, well, I don't know about "amazing" or "brave". I mean I did, sure, but...

"Misty-Re": (stuns Silver with knockout gas) Well, we can't have a repeat of that, hero.

Lara-Su: What about the queen...?

King Sonic: Sally has everything under control. They'll be safe. Now-- (jumps through window with Lara-Su) --let's do it to it!

Lara-Su: Did you seriously use that line back in the day?

King Sonic: It's a classic! Or would you prefer "hasta la vista, mistah"?

Lara-Su: Pffft!Ha ha ha!

Lien-Da: By the time they stage a counter-offensive, our mission will be complete. A fitting end to this pitiful regime. I don't care what 'stability' she brought, I never liked the Queen. Things got done under King Shadow. He appreciated what we did. The rest of the world might think things are better now, but they don't see the chaos on the horizon. We need strong, decisive leadership. Spare the rod and you spoil the world. It's taken five years of R&D...but it'll be worth it. A world saved, and my family returned to me.

King Sonic: Yes. This kingdom and our kids are more important then me, by a long shot.

Queen Sally: Fine then!

King Sonic: Fine!

Queen Sally: Be careful. Be safe.

King Sonic: I will!

Queen Sally: Good!

King Sonic: Good! (they both kiss)

King Sonic: (as he runs off) Sonic the Hedgehog--winning arguments for married men all over the world!

Key Events

Background Information

Before freeing Shadow, Lien-Da comments on who could have built the machine containing him, saying it could be Knuckles, Miles, or "that horrible Kintobor woman". This could be a reference to Hope Kintobor.

This is the first issue of Sonic Universe to feature lower case letters.

Strangely, the previews of this issue were not posted on Archie's Sonic Universe Blog despite that the scans themselves had been uploaded to the website.

When King Shadow was placed in suspended animation by Lara-Su, he did not have his cape on (having taken it off before he fought King Sonic), however when he is revived from stasis, he has his cape again. It could be possible Laru-Su and King Sonic put his cape back on him when they put him into stasis.

Judging by the dialogue between Sonic and Silver at the beginning of the issue, it's implied that Sonic has only met Silver once before in this timeline. This is made evident by Sonic only recalling Silver from thebattle on Moebius, even though he would've gone on to meet Silver severalmoretimes by this point. Additionally, Sonic still has no knowledge of who Silvers "traitor" is, despite being present when it was revealed in the past to be his future wife, Sally. It's possible that Silver's hunt for the "traitor" was never resolved in this timeline.

Interestingly, upon learning that she had disbanded the Knothole Freedom Fighters, Silver briefly considered the possibility of Sally being his traitor, which he quickly dismissed. Ironically, this would later actually turn out to be the case (although for a completely different reason, and under different circumstances).